8 Halloween Desserts That Are Equal Parts Spooky and Delicious

Candy, what candy? With a lineup of homemade sweets ranging from pumpkin cheesecake to a candy corn popsicle, you’ll forget all about it.

1 of 7Philip Friedman; Styling: Colleen Riley

Vanilla Mango Ice Cream Cake

Mango sorbet, vanilla ice cream, and crushed chocolate wafer cookies come together to create a striped ice cream cake with three layers of distinctly seasonal colors. To save time, you can cover and freeze the cake up to three days in advance. When the cake is ready to serve, dip a thin knife into hot water to easily cut it up into servable slices.

Bride of Frankenstein Cupcakes

These decadent chocolate cupcakes are topped with fluffy green marshmallow frosting and two distinct faces—Frankenstein and his bride—that are almost too cute to eat. Enlist the kids to help craft the faces, which are made from artfully arranged shoestring licorice, pretzel sticks, black sanding sugar, black sprinkles, and yellow candy dots.

Pumpkin Oranges With Granita

To make this party-worthy dessert, combine fresh orange juice and sugar in a baking dish and freeze until solid, approximately 2 to 3 hours. Scrape the frozen juice with a fork to create small flakes, and place in the shell of a navel orange that has been carefully carved to look like a jack-o-lantern.

Candy Corn Popsicle

This tiered popsicle, which features layers of coconut, pineapple, and mango juices, looks just like its super-sweet inspiration—candy corn. If you can’t find mango juice, you can substitute blood orange juice instead and leave out the red food coloring. Keep frozen for up to three days.

Simple Spiderweb Cake

Start with any flavor of cake as your base and top with vanilla frosting to create a canvas. Then, make black frosting by combining black food coloring and vanilla frosting in a piping bag. With a steady hand, follow the step-by-step directions to draw a large spider web. Finish your spooky design with three spiders.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

This cake’s graham cracker crust provides a crunchy contrast to the velvety cream cheese filling, which is spiked with pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spice for a double dose of autumnal flavor. In a pinch, you can prepare the pie and refrigerate, loosely covered with plastic wrap, up to two days in advance.

Salted Caramel and Pumpkin Seed Parfait

Layer a rich dulce de leche with homemade whipped cream, crumbled graham crackers, roasted pumpkin seeds, and a sprinkling of coarse sea salt for a decadent dessert that can be assembled in mere minutes. If serving at a dinner party, showcase the ingredients in pretty glass jars to really wow.